“The Squad of Belief’s? Psychological indoctrination. We now have methods of converting even the most obstinate lutherist. Of course where usual methods fail (and once in every fifteen hundred they do), the Squad is authorized to remove a section of brain which effectively does the trick of making the lutherist conform, though his usefulness in a number of other spheres is somewhat impaired: I’m told he has to learn all over again how to talk and to move around.” “Lutherist? I don’t recognize the word.” “You certainly have been cut off from the world.” Butler looked at me curiously, almost suspiciously. “I thought even in your day that was a common expression. It means anybody who refuses willfully to know the truth.” “What does it come from?” “Come from?” Semantics were either no longer taught or else Butler had never been interested in them. “Why it just means, well, a lutherist.” “I wonder, though, what the derivation of it was.” I was excited: this was the only sign that I had ever existed, a word of obscure origin connoting nonconformist. “I’m afraid we’ll have to ask my side-kick when he comes. I don’t suppose it came from one of those Christian sects ... you know the German one which broke with Rome.” “That must be it,” I said. “I don’t suppose in recent years there have been as many lutherists as there once were.” “Very, very few. As I say, we’ve got it down to a calculable minority and our psychologists are trying to work out some method whereby we can spot potential lutherists in childhood and indoctrinate them before it’s too late ... but of course the problem is a negligible one in the Atlantic states. We’ve had no serious trouble for forty years.” “Forty years ... that was the time of all the trouble,” I said. “Not so _much_ trouble,” said Butler, undoing the bandana and mopping his face with it. “The last flare-up, I gather, of the old Christians ... history makes very little of it though I suppose at the time it must have seemed important. Now that we have more perspective we can view things in their proper light. I was only a kid in those days and, frankly, I don’t think I paid any attention to the papers. Of course _you_ remember it.” He looked at me suddenly, his great vacuous eyes focused. My heart missed one of its precarious beats: was this the beginning? had the inquisition begun? “Not well,” I said. “I was seldom in the United States. I’d been digging in Central America, in and around the Peten. I missed most of the trouble.” “You seem to have missed a good deal.” His voice was equable, without a trace of secondary meaning. “I’ve had a quiet life. I’m grateful though for your coming here; otherwise. I should have died without any contact with America, without ever knowing what was happening outside the Arab League.” “Well, we’ll shake things up around here.” “Shake well before using,” I quoted absently. “What did you say?” “I said I hoped all would be well.”